Monday, January 14, 2013

Note they aren't trying to persuade their members that rape is not a victimless crime or that some women do not "rape easy." They just want these candidates to be more sensitive.

And who are they turning to for advice about rhetoric? Why, the very sensitive "pro-life" movement:

[A] training program [has] already being launched by an anti-abortion group — the Susan B. Anthony list — to keep candidates and lawmakers from continually making the same kind of comments that may have helped ruin Republicans’ chances of winning the Senate.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the lawmakers are falling for a trap set by proponents of abortion rights who want to focus the debate on extremes such as rape instead of other abortions.

“It’s a tactic to [force pro-life lawmakers to] talk about this rather than the 98 percent of abortions because they know that they lose it,” Dannenfelser said.

That's right. They need to get back to being decent and sensitive toward women --- by calling them baby killers or morons.

See? That's how you talk about the issue with sensitivity.

The truth is that the rape and birth control comments revealed a little bit too much about the conservative position on abortion. It's not about the fetus, no matter how much they want it to be. It's about women and sex and their desire to control it. They consider an unwanted pregnancy a punishment that must be borne by women who refuse to "take responsibility" for being ... sexual.

They don't want their politicians talking about this because it's deeply offensive to almost everyone and resulted in their losing some important elections. We've always known they were out of the mainstream but they'd been very clever about keeping the focus on the fetus and not the woman. Now the cat's out of the bag and they are desperate to put it back in. The problem is that their base is clueless and has been told that everyone agrees with their medieval belief system. It's not going to be that easy.